


Light the Fire, Knead the Dough,

by grasssea



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: And Screams For Help, Divinity Meets Domesticity, Gen, I Love Charlotte
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-23 21:05:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8342689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grasssea/pseuds/grasssea
Summary: "And make cakes of bread for the Queen of Heaven"Charlotte versus Humanity





	

She was worshiped once. _Adored_.  Men feared her name, women kept her close. Incense and fires burned for her, drinks were poured out as offering. 

She has never much cared for humans, but she did enjoy the attention while it lasted. She could look down at the sacred graves, hear the whispers of adulation echo in her ears, and it was good. She could dispense wisdom here and there, drippings of eternity. For the most part, however, her followers could be left on their own. Human women didn't need the pomp and circumstance human men did. Her priestesses were grandmothers around a cookfire, steel eyed maidens in sacred groves. They made their own doctrine. 

Now she wishes she had gotten a little more involved in those fledgling cults of old. They'd made humanity look so effortless, her human devotees.

Spoiler alert: It really isn't. 

 

The husband had been relieved and overjoyed when she had shown up at their door, so much so that he had shooed the children (four of them, ranging from painfully small to almost real person sized, brown haired and brown eyed but none of them looking anything like her human vessel) away and let her retire alone to bed. She is not arrogant enough to call that a blessing, no one will bless her but her. Besides, it made the next morning- stumbling downstairs to a room full of curious faces- all the more painful. 

They'd had so many questions. 

She had managed to fend them off with non-answers and tightlipped smiles, lies about staying with a friend, needing time to recover from her "ordeal". Then the children had been sent off to school, leaving her with one utterly human male covered in half baked foodstuffs- 'pancake batter' similar to but far thinner than the bread dough that had once been sacrificed in her name. 

He'd tried to start a conversation as he cleaned up, oblivious to her desire to leave. She'd finally agreed that yes, she had a headache (whatever that was) and made her escape. 

It hasn't really gotten better from there. 

 

Work had turned out to be a non issue. She'd answered a few frantic texts on her tiny phone with the vaguest replies possible and someone named Brad had promised her two weeks to recover and ended his flowery missives with Xs and Os in great numbers. She'd deal with the law when she had to, she figured it couldn't have changed too much in the past few millenia. A few less stonings, perhaps, but nothing she couldn't adapt to. 

The family, that's another matter. She wants to grab them by their frail human shoulders, shake them, and tell them Charlotte Richards is dead, that they're making fools of themselves prancing around pretending a superior being could be her just because they shared a bag of skin and bones. She wants to do lots of things, including but not limited to throwing fire down from the heavens out of sheer rage. She will do none of them, because her sons do not wish it. 

The Richards children, loud and bratty and constantly running about the place like a herd of stampeding cattle, are not her children. Their mother is some dead human woman, and they will be dead within the century as well. There's no use even paying attention to them, so Charlotte tries not to.  

They make it difficult. 

Luckily they're old enough to not need constant attention, like the truly tiny humans she remembers watching with distaste from the heavens a lifetime ago. They can walk and eat on their own, even if they do need to be mopped up after. They go to school and a myriad of activities, and she gets out of driving them there by claiming more headaches. The elder two spend most of their time at home locked in their rooms, and the younger two take little note of anything outside of their personal bubble of chaos- most of the time, at least. There are late night demands for hugs and kisses, which she gives reluctantly. She lies her way through helping with homework and even brushes up on her recent history in the process. After a few half hearted efforts she gives up on scolding the little hellions, and learns that it earns her their adoration- as does handing out little slips of paper money. it isn't easy, but she survives them and that's enough. 

Human bathing has greatly advanced since she last had the means or interest to check in on them, and as long as she can wash the muck of _parenting_ off at the end of the day, she can survive. 

Elliot Richards, who calls her dear and wanders about like an aimless duckling when not occupied with childcare, is both easier and harder to deal with. He's too old to be sent to his room, and she has tried. He looks at her with something close to the worship she once knew, and she is careful not to fall for his hapless charms. Her ex had gone for helpless mortality, had doted and bullied and generally gotten far too involved in humanity because of it. She is not about to make the same mistake, and so she takes care to remain aloof, never answering too much of his questions or giving into his silent pleas for help as he bumbles through life. He keeps cornering her when the children aren't around and asking- ever so gently- if she's sure she's feeling alright, if she needs to see a doctor or a therapist, if she needs to have a lie down. 

It takes her four days to realize the look on his face when she rounds on him irately after a barrage of well meaning concern is not fear but desire. After that- well, she'll do pretty much anything to get away from the river of queries aimed at the ghost in her new skin. 

It takes her a while to remember how it all works. Omnipotence means she is not ignorant as to what humans do when they need to procreate, but she'd never paid attention to the details. What goes where, how they pressed against each other and sighed with passion. 

It's a messy affair, even more so after a few false starts, and Elliot looks so worried until she fakes pleasure to match his. He still looks worried, even after it all, but he stops talking. 

Silence is her friend. There is the silence of the house after the children leave for school, the silence of the terrace at night, when she leaves her 'husband' and steps outside to make promises to the sky. In between, in the golden afternoons and those lazy evenings when everyone is at 'soccer practice', she hums the hymns once sung to her glory and tries to lift her voice in the melodies of the highest heavens. The hymns are half forgotten and Charlotte Richards' delicate vocal cords cannot match the harmony of angels, but even a crumb of home is enough to tide her through. 

She waits. Waits for her sons, waits for an opening, waits for revenge and a _true_ homecoming. She bided an eternity in chains, she can wait a little longer in the cage of a human form. 

And in the meantime...

  
  
"Mommy?" says a little voice behind her as she studies again the instructions on the 'vacuum cleaner' and tries to determine if the unholy noise it makes is in fact part of the design or if it's in danger of exploding. "Where's Dad?"

She turns and recognizes the smallest of the Richards. Big dark eyes and close cropped curls and a perpetually runny nose that Elliot insists is the result of allergies, all turned up to look at her with something approaching trust. Not absolute, all the children watch her warily as if they can sense she's not the one who made them, but closer to it than she has received in a long time. 

"He left," the woman who is now called Charlotte says, trying to make her smile less of a grimace and decidedly not mentioning that she had kicked him out of the house and told him not to come back until he had something to do with his time other than pester her. She heard lots of good things about hobbies from the obnoxious old ladies next door, and she was determined that he should get one. 

"Oh," the little faces looks downcast. "Cause I _really_ need help with my social studies homework." 

The goddess of all that ever was and arguably all that ever will be steels her heart as she once had against the tortures of hell and says with no small amount of reluctance, "I suppose I could help you... darling?" 

She long ago gave up on learning their names and nicknames and middle names that they used at school. It's too much of an investment of time for creatures who have such paltry lifespans to begin with. 

The child's eyes light up and he leads her over to the kitchen counter, where a glossy book with lots of maps and colourful pictures sits next to a worksheet. It takes her a second to decipher the words, her innate power reaching out and helping her make sense of a script so different from the one she remembers from years ago.

It says MY FAMILY FOODS.

"We're talking about family trees and traditions and culture and stuff," the boy explains carefully. "We're supposed to talk to our family members about foods that mean something to their heritage, or that are family traditions. I wrote about how we always make Christmas cookies," which was news to her "But I need one from my parent or guardian as well."

"I think maybe your father would be the one to ask about that," she says tactfully. 

The child pouts, "But I wanted to finish it now so I could go play in the pool with Anya and Lawan!" 

She racks her brain for any scrap of food related knowledge she can share, trying to remember the dinners she has helped burn over the past few days, the food she has eaten in her brief time as a human being. Nothing stand out except.... 

"I know what you can write about," she says, trying to exude motherly wisdom. It should be easier to convince a human infant of her maternal conviction than to sway Lucifer and Amenadiel. "Bread."

Somehow the human child does not look assured. "I don't think that's what Mr. McDonald wants to hear," he tells her gently and moves to snatch his homework paper away. Charlotte reaches out and pulls him into her side, careful not to crush delicate human ribs with the celestial power that lurks in the corner of her heart. 

"You wanted to hear about a food, I'll tell you about a food. When I was younger, much younger, people would always make bread for me."

"Jorge's dad makes fresh bread for his lunch and it tastes gross," he complains, trying to squirm away. 

"This was different bread," she tells him, and finds she likes remembering the good old days. It has been a long week since she's been able to talk about her past or her true self. "The point wasn't to eat it. The point was to make it."

The kid stops wriggling and gives in, climbing onto her lap (not exactly what she wanted, but close enough) and brandishing his writing implement with scholarly intent. 

"How did you make it and what was the importance to your family tradition?" he asks, twisting to look at her face. "That means why was it special."

"I don't know why it was special." Charlotte admits. She'd never known why humans really did anything. "It just was. They'd grind the flour, and mix it with water and salt, and bake it next to a fire. It wasn't very complicated, not compared to what you- what _we_ have these days. Then they'd give it to me."

He scribbles furiously, and when he comes up to breath he looks duly satisfied with the parenting provided. "That works, I think. Thanks mom."

"Anything for my tiny, human child." Charlotte lies, pushing him gently away. "Why don't you go play with the others?"

She still has a vacumn cleaner to fix or not fix depending on how it actually works, and dinner to make. Dinner. Her 'husband' had said something about quesadillas, but she doesn't have the patience for that today. She'll shop around for a recipe, or delegate it to one of the older children if she can. 

If all else fails, she's pretty sure she knows how to make bread. She could use a little worship at the moment, even if she has to do it her own damned self. 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr @ mazethequeen.tumblr.com


End file.
